Like a cast away of a sea storm organized by the spirit Ariel and initiated by the magician / scientist Prospero,the exiled Victor Hugo speaks about William Shakespeare, also stranded on our planet from another world: “He wrote on flyers, as almost every poet did, actually...” (Victor Hugo, About Shakespeare, §III-VIII)

These words have entitled me to imagine such flyers being blown by the wind. And then they gave me the courage to choose from this whirlwind, catching in flight the precious papers one by one. To stop on one of the lines or the other of one character or the other, to organize this disorder in a different, imaginary and histrionic entirety, which the Shakespeare –Buffoon would not have held it against me, hopefully. Understanding that I did not do it in disrespect, but on the contrary, with great love and unbounded admiration.

Unlike the stage representation of a certain play, in Folia, Shakespeare & Co I did not necessarily focus on one Shakespeare text or the other, but I have freely drawn from their world.

If in Shakespeare, not everyone is mad, but carried away, more or less, by a „folia“ wind.

In these distorting mirrors, things get upside down. Fools become wisemen and the sages can not realize how mad they are.

What I meant to do with Folia was to “rub” this buffoonish facade. Certainly, the prospecting might be extended forever, continued not only by the artists but also by the public.

I invite the spectators, with all humbleness, to this personal reflection, at the same time withwatching my Folia. Gigi Căciuleanu